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EVERETT'S ORATION 



DELIVERED AT 



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AN 



ORATION 



DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH 



DECEMBER 22, 1824. 



By EDWARD EVERETT. 



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4 

CUMMINGS, MILLIARD k CO. 134 WASHINGTON STREET. 
1825. 



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district of iHnissnichusctts : to toit 

Be it remembered, That on the thutecntli day of January in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eig'ht hundred and twenty -five, and in 
tlie forty-ninth year of tlie Independence of the United States of America, 
CuMMiNGS, HiLLiAKD k. Co. of the said District, have deposited in this 
office, the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietoi-s, in 
the words following, to wit : 

" An Oration delivered at Plymouth December 22, 1824. By Edward 
Everett." 

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, 
" An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of 
Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, 
during tlie times therein mentioned ;" and also to an act, entitled " An 
act, supplementary to an act, entitled an act for the encouragement of 
learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the au- 
thors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ; 
and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, 
and etching historical and other prints." n wic; 

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. 



I. R. Butts, Printer. 
Press of the North American Review. 



I 



1^0 



?/ 



Plymouth^ December 23, 1824. 
Professor Edward Everett, 

Sir, — In obedience to a vote of the Trustees of the Pilgrim So- 
ciety, I have the honor to make the subjoined communication. 

" At a meeting of the Trustees of the Pilgrim Society, holden in 
Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1824, 

" Voted, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Professor Ed- 
ward Everett, for his interesting and eloquent Discourse delivered this 
day ; and that a copy be requested for publication." 
I am, with due sentiments of respect and regard, sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

SAMUEL DAVIS, 

Corresponding Secretary, 



A few passages in the following Discourse 
were, on account of its length, omitted in the 
delivery. 



There are occasions on which the employ- 
ment, best calculated to be pleasing, becomes a 
source of anxiety ; and the most flattering trust 
grows into a burthen. Amidst all the proud 
and grateful feelings, which the return of this 
anniversary must inspire, in the bosom of every 
child of New England, a deep solicitude op- 
presses me, lest I should fail in doing justice to 
the men, to the day, and to the events, which 
we are met to commemorate. In this solici- 
tude, no personal sentiment mingles. I should 
be unworthy to address you, on this occasion, 
could I, from the selfish desire of winning your 
applause, devote one of the moments of this 
consecrated day to any cold speculations, how- 
ever ingenious or original. Gladly would I give 
utterance to the most familiar commonplaces, 
1 



6 

could I be so happy in doing it, as to excite or 
strengthen the feelings, which belong to the 
time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to 
you those sentiments, which a hundred times 
have been uttered and welcomed on this anni- 
versary ; sentiments, whose truth does not 
change in the change of circumstances, whose 
power does not wear out with time. It is not 
by pompous epithets or lively antithesis, that the 
exploits of the pilgrims are to be set forth by 
their children. We can only do this worthily, 
by repeating the plain tale of their suffer- 
ings, by dwelling on the circumstances under 
which their memorable enterprise was execu- 
ted, and by cherishing and uttering that spirit, 
which led them across the Ocean, and guided 
them to the spot where we stand. — We need 
no voice of artificial rhetoric to celebrate their 
names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of 
nature proclaims, with touching eloquence, the 
fortitude and patience of the meek adventurers. 
On the bare and wintry fields around us, their 
exploits are written in characters, which will 
last, and tell their tale to posterity, when brass 
and marble have crumbled into dust. 



The occasion which has called us together 
is certainly one, to which no parallel exists 
in the history of the world. Other countries, 
and our own also, have their national festivals. 
They commemorate the birthdays of their illus- 
trious children ; they celebrate the foundation 
of important institutions : momentous events, 
victories, reformations, revolutions awaken, on 
their anniversaries, the grateful and patriotic 
feelings of posterity. But we commemorate 
the birthday of all New England ; the founda- 
tion, not of one institution, but of all the insti- 
tutions, the settlements, the establishments, the 
communities, the societies, the improvements, 
comprehended within our broad and happy 
borders. 

Were it only as an act of rare adventure ; 
were it a trait in foreign, or ancient history; we 
should fix upon the achievement of our fathers, 
as one of the noblest deeds, in the annals of 
the world. Were we attracted to it, by no 
other principle than that sympathy we feel, in 
all the fortunes of our race, it could lose nothing 
— it must gain — in the contrast, with whatever 
history or tradition has preserved to us of the 
wanderings and settlements of the tribes of 



8 

man. A continent for the first time, effectually 
explored ; a vast ocean traversed by men, vio- 
men, and children, voluntarily exiling them- 
selves from the fairest regions of the old world; 
and a great nation grown up, in the space of 
two centuries, on the foundations so perilously 
laid, by this pious band : — point me to the re- 
cord, to the tradition, nay to the fiction of any 
thing, that can enter into competition with it. — 
It is the language not of exaggeration, but of 
truth and soberness to say, that there is nothing 
in the accounts of Phenician, of Grecian, or of 
Roman Colonization, that can stand in the com- 
parison. 

What new importance then does not the 
achievement acquire to our minds, when we 
consider that it was the deed of our fathers ; 
that this grand undertaking was accomplished 
on the spot where we dwell ; that the mighty 
region they explored is our native land ; that 
the unrivalled enterprise they displayed, is not 
merely a fact proposed to our admiration, but is 
the source of our being ; that their cruel hard- 
ships are the spring of our prosperity ; their 
amazing sufferings the seed, from which our 
happiness has sprung ; that their weary banish- 



ment gave us a home ; that to their separation 
from every thing which is dear and pleasant in 
life, we owe all the comforts, the blessings, the 
privileges, which make our lot the envy of man- 
kind. 

These are the well known titles of our ances- 
tors to our gratitude and veneration. 

But there seems to me this peculiarity in the 
nature of their enterprise, that its grand and 
beneficent consequences are, with the lapse of 
time, constantly unfolding themselves, in an ex- 
tent, and to a magnitude, which, till they are 
witnessed, are beyond the reach of the most 
sanguine promise. In the frail condition of 
human affairs, we have generally nothing left 
us to commemorate, but heroic acts of valor, 
which have resulted in no permanent effect ; 
great characters, that have struggled nobly, but 
in vain, against the disastrous combinations of 
the age ; brilliant triumphs of truth and justice, 
rendered unproductive, by the complication of 
opposite events, and by the stern resistance of 
that system of destiny, of which even the inde- 
pendence of our wills seems an obedient mem- 
ber. — At best, it is a great blessing, when we 
can point to some bright unclouded character ; 
or some prosperous and well ordered institu- 



10 

lion ; fortunate in rise and progress ; grand and 
glorious at maturity ; majestic, peaceful, and 
seasonable in decay, and piously lamented when 
no more ; and it is to the few spectacles of this 
kind in human history, that our minds so con- 
stantly and fondly revert from the chequered 
scene of intermediate and troubled times and 
conditions. 

But it is the peculiar character of the enter- 
prise of our pilgrim forefathers — successful in- 
deed in its outset — that it has been more and 
more successful, at every subsequent point in the 
line of time. — Accomplishing all they projected ; 
what they projected was the least part of what 
has been accomplished. Forming a design, in 
itself grand, bold, and even appalling, for the 
sacrifices it required, and the risks it involved ; 
the fulfilment of that design is the least thing, 
which, in the steady progress of events, has 
flowed from their counsels and their eflbrts. — 
Did they propose to themselves a refuge beyond 
the sea, from the religious and political tyranny 
of Europe ? They achieved not that alone, but 
they have opened a wide asylum to all the vic- 
tims of tyranny throughout the world. We 
ourselves have seen the statesmen, the generals, 



11 

the kings of the elder world, flying for protec- 
tion to the shadow of our institutions. Did 
they wish only to escape to a remote corner, 
where the arm of oppression could not reach 
them ? They founded a great realm, an imperial 
patrimony of liberty, the first effectual counter- 
poise in the scale of human right. Did they 
look for a retired spot, inoffensive for its obscu- 
rity and safe in its remoteness, where the little 
church of Leyden might enjoy the freedom of 
conscience ? Behold the mighty regions over 
which in peaceful conquest — victoria sine clade 
— they have borne the banners of the cross. — 
Did they seek, beneath the protection of trading 
charters, to prosecute a frugal commerce in 
reimbursement of the expenses of their humble 
establishment ? The fleets and navies of their 
descendants are on the farthest ocean ; and the 
wealth of the Indies is now wafted with every 
tide to the coasts, where with hook and line 
they painfully gathered up their little adven- 
tures. — In short, did they, in their brightest and 
most sanguine moments, contemplate a thrifty, 
loyal, and prosperous colony — portioned off, 
like a younger son of the imperial household, 
to an humble, a dutiful distance ? Behold the 






12 

spectacle of an independent and powerful Re- 
public, founded on the shores where some of 
those are but lately deceased, who saw the first- 
born of the pilgrims. 

And shall we stop here ? Is the tale now 
told ; is the contrast now complete ; are our 
destinies all fulfilled ; have we reached the me- 
ridian ; are we declining ; are we stationary ? 
My friends, I tell you, we have but begun ; we 
are in the very morning of our days ; our num- 
bers are but an unit ; our national resources 
but a pittance ; our hopeful achievements in the 
political, the social, and the intellectual nature, 
are but the rudiments of what the children of 
the Pilgrims must yet attain. If there is any 
thing certain in the principles of human and 
social progress ; if there is any thing clear in 
the deductions from past history ; if there is 
any, the least, reliance to be placed on the con- 
clusions of reason, in regard to the nature of 
man, the existing spectacle of our country's 
growth, magnificent as it is, does not suggest 
even an idea of what it must be. I dare adven- 
ture the prediction, that he who shall stand 
where I stand, two centuries hence, and look 
back on our present condition from a distance, 



IS 

equal to that from which we contemplate the 
first settlement of the Pilgrims, will sketch a 
contrast far more astonishing ; and will speak 
of our times as the day of small things, in 
stronger and juster language, than any in which 
we can depict the poverty and wants of our 
fathers. 

But we ought to consecrate this day, not to 
the promise, nor even the present blessings of 
our condition, except so far as these are con- 
nected with the memory of the Pilgrims. The 
twenty second of December belongs to them ; 
and we ought, in consistency, to direct our 
thoughts to the circumstances, under which 
their most astonishing enterprise was achieved. 
I shall hope to have contributed my mite to- 
wards our happy celebration, if I can succeed 
in pointing out a few of those circumstances of 
the first emigration to our country, and particu- 
larly of the first emigration to New England,* 
from which, under a kind Providence, has flow- 
ed not only the immediate success of the under- 
taking, but the astonishing train of consequences 
auspicious to the cause of liberty, humanity, and 
truth. 

* See Note A. 
2 



14 

I. Our forefathers regarded, with natural ter- 
ror, the passage of the mighty deep. Navigation, 
notwithstanding the great advances wliich it had 
made in the sixteenth century, was yet, com- 
paratively speaking, in its infancy. The very 
fact, that voyages of great length and hazard 
were successfully attempted in small vessels, a 
fact which, on first view, might seem to show a 
high degree of perfection in the art, in reality 
proves that it was as yet but imperfectly under- 
stood. That the great Columbus should put to 
sea, for the discovery of a new passage across 
the Western Ocean to India, with two out of 
three vessels unprovided icith decks, may indeed 
be considered the effect, not of ignorance of 
the art of navigation, but of bitter necessity.* 
But that Sir Francis Drake, near a hundred 
years afterwards, the first naval commander who 
ever sailed round the earth, enjoying the advan- 
tage of the royal patronage, and aided by the 
fruits of no little personal experience, should 
have embarked on his voyage of circumnaviga- 
tion, with five vessels, of which the largest was of 
one hundred, and the smallest of fifteen tons,! 

* See Note B. 

t Biographia Brittanica, HI. 1732. 



15 

must needs be regarded as proof, that the art of 
navigation, in the generation preceding our an- 
cestors, had not reached that point, where the 
skilful adaptation of means to ends supersedes 
the necessity of extraordinary intrepidity, aided 
by not less extraordinary good fortune. It was 
therefore the first obstacle, which presented 
itself to the project of the pilgrims, that it was 
to be carried into execution, across the ocean, 
which separates our continent from the rest of 
the world.* Notwithstanding, however, this cir- 
cumstance, and the natural effect it must have 
had on their minds, there is no doubt that it is 
one of those features in our natural situation, to 
which America is indebted, not merely for the 
immediate success of the enterprise of settle- 
ment, but for much of its subsequent growth 
and prosperity, 

I do not now allude to the obvious considera- 
tion, that the remoteness of the country, to be 
settled, led to a more thorough preparation for 
the enterprise, both as respects the tempers of 
those who embarked in it, and the provisions 
made for carrying it on ; though this view will 
not be lost on those, who reflect on the nature 

* See Note C. 



16 

of man, by which difficult enterprises (so they 
be not desperate) are more likely to succeed, 
than those which seem much easier. Nor do 
I allude to the effect of our distance from 
Europe, in preventing the hasty abandonment 
of the colony, under the pressure of the first 
difficulties ; although the want of frequent and 
convenient reconveyance was doubtless a con- 
siderable security to the early settlements, and 
placed our fathers, in some degree, in the situa- 
tion of the followers of Cortez, after he had 
intrepidly burned the vessels, which conveyed 
them to the Mexican coasts. 

The view, which I would now take of the re- 
moteness of America from Europe, is connected 
with the higher principles of national fortune 
and progress. 

The rest of the world, though nominally di- 
vided into three continents, in reality consists of 
but one. Europe, Asia, and Africa are separated 
by no natural barriers, which it has not been easy 
in every age for an ambitious invader to pass ; 
and apart from this first consequence of the juxta- 
position of their various regions, a communica- 
tion of principle and feeling, of policy and pas- 
sion, may be propagated, at all times, even to 



17 

their remote and seemingly inaccessible coiiimu- 
nities. The consequence has been, on the whole, 
highly unfavorable to social progress. The ex- 
tent of country inhabited or rather infested by 
barbarous tribes, has generally far outweighed 
the civilized portions ; and more than once, in the 
history of the world, refinement, learning, arts, 
laws, and religion, with the wealth and pros- 
perity they have created, have been utterly swept 
away, and the hands, as it were, moved back, 
on the dial plate of time, in consequence of the 
irruption of savage hordes into civilized regions. 
Were the early annals of the East as amply 
preserved as those of the Roman empire, they 
would probably present us with accounts of 
revolutions, on the Nile and the Euphrates, 
as disastrous as those, by which the civilized 
world was shaken, in the first centuries of the 
Christian era. — Till an ocean interposes its 
mighty barrier, no citadel of freedom or truth 
has been long maintained. The magnificent 
temples of Egypt were demohshed in the sixth 
century before our Saviour, by the hordes, which 
Cambyses had collected from the steppes of 
Central Asia. The vineyards of Burgundy 
were wasted in the third century of our era, by 



18 

roving savages from beyond the Caucasus. In 
the eleventh century, Gengis Khan and his 
Tartars swept Europe and Asia from the Baltic 
to the China Sea. And Ionia and Attica, the 
gardens of Greece, are still, under the eyes of the 
leading Christian powers of Europe, beset by re- 
morseless barbarians from the Altai Mountains. 

Nor is it the barbarians alone, who have been 
tempted by this facility of communication, to 
a career of boundless plunder. The Alexan- 
ders and the Caesars, the Charlemagnes and 
the Napoleons, the founders of great empires 
and authors of schemes of universal monarchy, 
have been enabled, by the same circumstance, 
to turn the annals of mankind into a tale of 
war and misery. When we descend to the 
scrutiny of single events, we find that the na- 
tions, who have most frequently and most im- 
mediately suffered, have been those most easily 
approached and overrun ; — and that those who 
have longest or most uniformly maintained their 
independence, have done it by virtue of lofty 
mountains, wide rivers, or the surrounding sea. 

In this state of things, the three united conti- 
nents of the old world do not contain a single 
spot, where any grand scheme of human im- 



19 

provement couM be attempted, with a prospect 
of fair experiment and full success, because 
there is no spot safe from foreign interference ; 
and no member of the general system so insig- 
nificant, that his motions are not watched with 
jealousy by all the rest. The welfare and pro- 
gress of man in the most favored region, in- 
stead of proceeding in a free and natural course, 
dependent on the organization and condition 
of that region alone, can only reach the point, 
which may be practicable in the general result 
of an immensely complicated system, made up 
of a thousand jarring members. 

Our country accordingly opened, at the time 
of its settlement, and still opens, a new the- 
atre of human development. — Notwithstand- 
ing the prodigious extent of commercial inter- 
course, and the wide grasp of naval power 
among modern states, and their partial effect 
in bringing us into the political system of Eu- 
rope, it need not be urged, that we are essen- 
tially strangers to it ; — placed at a distance, 
which retards, and for every injurious purpose, 
neutralizes all peaceful communication, and de- 
fies all hostile approach. To this it was owing 
that so little was here felt of the convulsions of 



20 

the civil wars, which followed in England so 
soon after the expulsion of our fathers. To this, 
in a more general view, we are indebted for many 
of our peculiarities as a nation, for our steady 
colonial growth, our establishment of indepen- 
dence, our escape amidst the political storms 
which, during the last thirty years, have shaken 
the empires of the earth. — To this we shall still 
be indebted, and more and more indebted, with 
the progress of our country, for the originality 
and stability of our national character. Hither- 
to the political effects of our seclusion, behind 
the mighty veil of waters, have been the most 
important. Now, that our political foundations 
are firmly laid ; that the work of settlement, of 
colonization, of independence, and of union is 
all done, and happily done, we shall reap, in 
other forms, the salutary fruits of our remote- 
ness from the centres of foreign opinion and 
feeling. 

I say not this in direct disparagement of 
foreign states ; their institutions are doubtless as 
good, in many cases, as the condition of things 
now admits ; or when at the worst, could not 
be remedied by any one body, nor by any one 
generation of men ; and the evil which requires 



2t 

for its remedy the accord of successive genera- 
tions, at the same time that it may generally be 
called desperate, ought to bring no direct re- 
proach upon the men of any one period. 

But without disparaging foreign institutions, 
we may be allowed to prefer our own ; to assert 
their excellence, to seek to build them up on 
their original foundations, on their true princi- 
ples, and in their unmingled purity. That great 
word of Independence, which, if first uttered in 
1776, was most auspiciously anticipated in 1620, 
comprehends much more than a mere absence 
of foreign jurisdiction. I could almost say, that 
if it rested there, it would scarcely be worth as- 
serting. In every noble, in every true accepta- 
tion, it implies not merely an American govern- 
ment, but an American character, an American 
pride. To the formation of these, nothing will 
more powerfully contribute than our geographi- 
cal distance from other parts of the world. The 
unhealthy air of Europe is purified in crossing 
the waves of the Atlantic. The roaring of its 
mighty billows is not terrible, — it does but echo 
the voices of our national feeling and power. 

In these views there is nothing unsocial ; 
nothing hostile to a friendly and improving con- 
3 



22 

nexion of distant regions with each other, or 
to the profitable interchange of the commodities, 
which a bountiful Providence has variously scat- 
tered over the earth. For these and all other 
desirable ends, the perfection, to which the 
art of navigation is brought, affords abundant 
means of conquering the obstacles of distance. 
It is idle, in reference to these ends, to speak 

of our remoteness from the rest of the world, 

• 
while our commerce is exploring the farthest 

regions of the earth ; while, in exchange for 
the products or efforts of our industry, the 
flocks on the western declivity of the Peruvian 
Andes are supplying us with wool ; the north- 
eastern coasts of Japan furnishing, us with oil ; 
and the central provinces of China, with tea. 
At this moment, the reward of American skill 
is paid by the Chieftains of inner Tartary, 
wrapped up in the furs, which, in our voyages 
of circumnavigation, we have collected on the 
North Western Coast of our Continent. The 
interest on American capital is paid by the 
haughty viziers of Anatolia, whose opium is cul- 
tivated and gathered for our merchants. The 
wages of American labor are paid by the 
princes of Hindostan, whose plantations of in- 



23 

digo depend on us for a portion of their market. 
While kings and ministers, by intrigue and 
bloodshed, are contesting the possession of a 
few square miles of territory, our commerce has 
silently extended its jurisdiction from island to 
island, from sea to sea, from continent to con- 
tinent, till it holds the globe in its grasp. 

But while no one can doubt the mutual ad- 
vantages of a judiciously conducted commerce, 
or be insensible of the good, which has re- 
sulted to the cause of humanity, from the cul- 
tivation of a peaceful and friendly intercourse 
with other climes, it is yet beyond question, 
that the true principle of American policy, to 
which the whole spirit of our institutions, not 
less than the geographical features of the coun- 
try, invites us, is separation from Europe. 
Next to union at home, which ought to be 
called not so much the essential condition of 
our national existence, as our existence itself, 
separation from all other countries, in policy, 
spirit, and character, is the great principle, by 
which we are to prosper. It is toward this 
that our efforts, public and private, ought to 
strain ; and we shall rise or decline in strength, 
improvement, and worth, as we observe or de- 



24 

sert this principle. This is the voice of nature, 
which did not in vain disjoin our continent 
from the old world ; nor reserve it beyond the 
ocean for fifty centuries, only that it might 
become a common receptacle for the exploded 
principles, the degenerate examples, and the 
remediless corruptions of other states. This 
is the voice of our history, which traces every 
thing excellent in our character and prosper- 
ous in our fortunes, to dissent, nonconformity, 
departure, resistance, and revolution. This 
is taught us by the marked peculiarity, the 
wonderful novelty which, whether we will it 
or not, displays itself in our whole physical, 
political, and social existence. 

And it is a matter of sincere congratulation, 
that, under the healthy operation of natural 
causes, very partially accelerated by legislation, 
the current of our pursuits and industry, with- 
out deserting its former channels, is throwing 
a broad and swelling branch into the interior. 
Foreign commerce, the natural employment of 
an enterprising people, whose population is 
accumulated on the seacoast, and whose neu- 
tral services are called for by a world in 
arms, is daily reverting to a condition of more 



25 

equal participation among the various maritime 
states, and is in consequence becoming less 
productive to any one. While America re- 
mains, and will always remain, among the 
foremost commercial and naval states, an am- 
ple portion of our resources has already taken 
a new direction. We profited of the dissen- 
sions of Europe, which threw her trade into 
our hands ; and we amassed a capital, as her 
carriers, before we could otherwise have one 
of our own. We are now profiting of the 
pacification of Europe, in the application to 
our own soil, our own mineral and vegetable 
products, our water course and water falls, 
and our general internal resources, of a part 
of the capital thus accumulated. 

This circumstance is, in a general view, most 
gratifying ; inasmuch as it creates a new bond 
of mutual dependence, in the variety of our 
natural gifts, and in the mutual benefits ren- 
dered each other by the several sectional in- 
terests of the country. The progress is likely 
to be permanent and sure, because it has been 
mainly brought about in the natural order of 
things, and with little legislative interference. 
Within a few years what a happy change has 



26 

taken place ! The substantial clothing of our 
industrious classes is now the growth of the 
American soil, and the texture of the American 
loom ; the music of the water wheel is heard on 
the banks of our thousand rural streams ; and 
enterprise and skill, with wealth, refinement, 
and prosperity in their train, having studded 
the seashore with populous cities, are making 
their great " progress" of improvement through 
the interior, and sowing towns and villages, as 
it were broadcast, through the country. 

II. If our remote position be so important 
among the circumstances, which favored the 
enterprise of our fathers, and have favored 
the growth of their settlements, scarcely less 
so was the point of time at which those set- 
tlements were commenced. 

When we cast our eyes over the annals 
of our race, we find them to be filled with 
a tale of various fortunes ; the rise and fall 
of nations ; — periods of light and darkness ; — 
of great illumination, and of utter obscurity ; — 
and of all intermediate degrees of intelligence, 
cultivation, and liberty. But in the seeming 
confusion of the narrative, our attention is 



27 

arrested by three more conspicuous eras at 
unequal distances in the lapse of ages. 

In Egypt we still behold, on the banks of 
the Nile, the monuments of a polished a,ge ; 
—a period, no doubt, of high cultivation, and 
of great promise. Beneath the influence of 
causes, which are lost in the depth of an- 
tiquity, but which are doubtless connected 
with the debasing superstitions and despotism 
of the age, this period passed away, and left 
scarce a trace of its existence, beyond the stu- 
pendous and mysterious structures, — the tem- 
ples, the obelisks, and the pyramids, — which 
yet bear witness to an age of great power 
and cultivated art, and mock the curiosity of 
mankind by the records inscrutably carved on 
their surfaces. 

Passing over an interval of one thousand 
years, we reach the second epoch of light 
and promise. With the progress of freedom 
in Greece, the progress of the mind kept pace ; 
and an age both of achievement and of hope 
succeeded, of which the indirect influence is 
still felt in the world. But the greater part 
of mankind were too barbarous to improve 
by the example of this favored corner ; and 



28 

though the influence of its arts, letters, and 
civilization was wonderfully extensive and du- 
rable, — though it seemed to revive at the court 
of the Roman Csesars, and still later, at that 
of the Arabian Caliphs, yet not resting on 
those popular institutions and popular princi- 
ples, which can alone be permanent because 
alone natural, it slowly died away, and Eu- 
rope and the world relapsed into barbarity. 

The third great era of our race is the close 
of the fifteenth century. The use of the mari- 
ner's compass and the invention of the art 
of printing, had furnished the modern world, 
with two engines of improvement and civiliza- 
tion, either of which was far more efficacious 
than all united, known to antiquity. The re- 
formation also, about this time, disengaged 
Christianity, itself one of the most powerful 
instruments of civilization, from those abuses, 
which had hitherto nearly destroyed its bene- 
ficent influence on temporal affairs ; and at 
this most chosen moment in the annals of 
the world, America was discovered. 

It would not be difficult, by pursuing this 
analysis, to show that the very period, when the 
settlement of our coasts began, was peculiarly 



29 

auspicious to the foundation of a new and hope- 
ful system. 

Religious reformation was the original prin- 
ciple, which enkindled the zeal of our pilgrim 
fathers ; as it has been so often acknow- 
ledged to be the master principle of the great- 
est movements in the modern world.* The 
religions of Greece and Rome were portions 
of the political systems of these countries. 
The Scipios, the Crassuses, and Julius Csesar 
himself, were high priests. It was, doubt- 
less, owing in part to this example, tliat at 
an early period after the first introduction of 
Christianity, the heads of the church so en- 
tirely mistook the spirit of this religion, that, 
in imitation of the splendid idolatry, which 
was passing away, they aimed at a new 
combination of church and state, which re- 
ceived but too much countenance from the 
policy of Constantino. t This abuse, with 
ever multiplying and aggravated calamitous 
consequences, endured, without any effectual 
check, till the first blow was aimed at the 
supremacy of the papal power, by Philip the 
Fair of France, in the fourteenth century, 

>* See Note D. t Sec Note E. 

4 



30 

who laid the foundation of the liberties of the 
Gallican church, of which the Constitution 
may be called the Catholic Reformation.* 

After an interval of two hundred years, this 
example was followed and improved upon by 
the Princes in Germany, that espoused the 
protestant reformation of Luther, and in a 
still more decisive manner by Henry the Eighth 
in England ; at which period we may accord- 
ingly date the second great step in the march 
of religious liberty.! 

Much more, however, was yet to be effected 
toward the dissolution of the unnatural bond 
between Church and State. Hitherto a domes- 
tic was substituted for a foreign yoke, and 
the rights of private conscience had, perhaps, 
gained but little in the exchange. In the 
middle of the sixteenth century, and among 
the exiles, whom the frantic tyranny of Queen 
Mary had driven to the free cities on the 
Rhine, the ever memorable communion of Pu- 
ritans arose. On their return to England, in 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they strenuously 
opposed themselves to the erection and pecu- 
liarities of the English national church. 

* See Note F. f See Note G. 



31 

Nearly as we have now reached, both in 
simplicity of principle and point of time, to 
our pilgrim forefathers, there is one more puri- 
fying process to go through, one more gene- 
ration to pass away. The major part of the 
Puritans themselves, while they rejected some 
of the forms, and disliked the organization of 
the English church, adhered in substance to 
the Constitution of the Genevan church, and 
their descendants were willing, a century later, to 
accept of an establishment by law in Scotland. 

It remained, therefore, to shake off the last 
badge of subjection, and in the person of Ro- 
bert Brown, an individual himself of no very 
commendable qualities, the last step was taken 
in the progress of reform, by asserting the 
independence of each single church. The 
personal character of Brown was such as to 
throw no little discouragement on the cause ; 
nor did it acquire firmness till espoused by 
Robinson, who may be called the father of 
the Independent churches. His own at Ley- 
den was the chief of these, and fidelity to their 
principles was the motive of their departure 
from Holland, and the occasion of their set- 
tlement at Plymouth.* 

* See Note H. 



32 

But all may not be disposed to join us, in 
so exact a specification of the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, as the period, when 
religious reform had reached its last perfection, 
and consequently, as the era most favorable 
to the establishment of a new and free state. 
None, however, on a larger view of the sub- 
ject, will be unwilling to allow that this was 
the great age of general improvement. It was 
the age, when the discoveries of the Spanish, 
Portuguese, and English navigators had begun 
to exert a stimulating influence on the world 
at large, and the old continent and the new, 
like the magnetic poles, commenced those 
momentous processes of attraction and repul- 
sion, from which so much of the activity of 
both has since proceeded. It was the period 
when the circulation of knowledge had be- 
come general ; and books in all languages were 
in the hands of a very large class in every 
country. The history of Europe, in all its 
states, shows the extent and vehemence of 
the consequent fermentation. With their new 
engines of improvement and new principles of 
right, the communities of men rushed forward 
in the course of reform ; some with firmness 



33 

and vigor, proportioned to the greatness of 
the object in view, most with tumult and des- 
peration, proportioned to the duration and mag- 
nitude of their injuries, and none with entire 
success. The most that was effected, in the 
most fortunate states, was a compromise be- 
tween the new claims and the old abuses. 
Absolute kings stipulated to be no longer 
absolute ; and free men preferred what they 
called petitions of right. In this way, and 
after infinite struggles, a tolerable foundation 
for considerable practical liberty was laid on 
two principles, in the abstract entirely false ; 
that of acquiescence on the part of the sove- 
reign, and prescription in favor of the people. 
So firmly established are these principles, by 
consent of the statesmen of the freest country 
in Europe, as the best and only foundation of 
civil rights, that so late as the last years of 
the eighteenth century, a work of ingenuity 
seldom, of eloquence never, surpassed, was 
written by Mr Burke, to prove, that the peo- 
ple of England have not a right to appoint 
and to remove their rulers ; and that if they 
ever had the right, they deliberately renounced 
it at what is called the glorious revolution 



34 

of 1G88, for themselves and their posterity 
forever.* 

It is obvious, therefore, that the meliora- 
tions, which have taken place in Europe within 
the last two centuries, rest on no sound prin- 
ciple, and are but the effect of alteratives 
on the fatal malady of age, with which her 
states are sick at heart. It is true that the 
popular element, such is its sovereign healing 
power, which, even on the poor footing of a 
compromise, has been introduced into a portion 
of their political constitutions, has operated 
some of the beneficent effects of the fabled 
transfusion of youthful blood into aged veins. 
But the principles of prescription and acqui- 
escence unfortunately run as much in favor 
of abuses and corruptions as of privileges. On 
the received footing, the acknowledged vices 
and evils of their institutions are as sacred 
as the best rights, and the door to any con- 
sistent and rational improvement is effectually 
closed ; because the more degenerate, the more 
antiquated, the more hostile to the spirit and 
character of the age, the institution that needs 
reform may be, the more ancient it will also 

* See Note I. 



35 

commonly be found, and in consequence, the 
more strongly fortified by prescription. 

While, therefore, the work of social renova- 
tion is entirely hopeless in Europe, we cannot 
but regard it as the plain interposition of Provi- 
dence, that, at the critical point of time, when 
the most powerful springs of improvement were 
in operation, a chosen company of pilgrims, who 
were actuated by these springs of improvement, 
in all their strength, who had purchased the 
privilege of dissent at the high price of banish- 
ment from the civilized world, and who, with the 
dust of their feet, had shaken off the antiquated 
abuses and false principles, which had been ac- 
cumulating for thousands of years, came over to 
these distant, unoccupied shores. I know not 
that the work of thorough reform could be safely 
trusted to any other hands. I can credit their 
disinterestedness, when they maintain the equal- 
ity of ranks ; for no rich forfeitures of attainted 
lords await them in the wilderness. I need not 
question the sincerity with which they assert the 
rights of conscience ; for the plundered treasures 
of an ancient hierarchy are not to seal their doc- 
trine. They rested the edifice of their civil and 
religious liberties on a foundation as pure and 



36 

iniiocent as the snows around them. Blessed 
be the spot, the only one earth, where such a 
foundation was ever laid. Blessed be the spot, 
the only one on earth, where man has attempted 
to establish the good, without beginning with 
the sad, the odious, the too suspicious task of 
pulling down the bad. 

III. Under these favorable auspices, the Pil- 
grims landed on the coast of New England. 
They found it a region of moderate fertility, 
offering an unsubdued wilderness to the hand 
of labor, with a climate temperate indeed, but 
compared with that which they had left, verging 
somewhat near to either extreme ; and a soil 
which promised neither gold nor diamonds, nor 
any thing but what should be gained from it by 
patient industry. This was but a poor reality 
for that dream of oriental luxury, with which 
America had filled the imaginations of men. 
The visions of Indian wealth, of mines of silver 
and gold, and fisheries of pearl, with which the 
Spanish adventurers in Mexico and Peru had 
astonished the ears of Europe, were but poorly 
fulfilled on the bleak, rocky, and sterile plains 
of New England. No doubt, in the beginning 



37 

of the settlement, these circumstances operated 
unfavorably on the growth of the colony. In 
the nature of things, it is mostly adventurers, 
who incline to leave their homes and native 
land, and risk the uncertainty of another hemi- 
sphere ; and a climate and soil like ours furnish- 
ed but little attraction to the adventuring class. 
Captain Smith, in his zeal to promote the 
growth of New England, is at no little pains to 
show that the want of mineral treasures was 
amply compensated by the abundant fishery of 
the coast ; and having sketched in strong colors 
the prosperity and wealth of the states of Hol- 
land, he adds, " Divers, I know, may allege 
many other assistances, but this is the chiefest 
mine, and the sea the source of those silver 
streams of their virtue, which hath made them 
now the very miracle of industry, the only pat- 
tern of perfection for these aflairs ; and the 
benefit of fishing is that prhnimi mobile that 
turns all their spheres to this height of plenty, 
strength, honor and exceeding great admira- 
tion."* 

While we smile at this overwrought panegy- 
ric on the primitive resource of our fathers, we 

^ Smith's Gcnerall Historic,. &c. Vol. IT. p. 185. Richmond Edit. 



38 

cannot but do justice to the principle, on which 
it rests. It is doubtless to the untempting quali- 
ties of our climate and soil, and the conditions 
of industry and frugality, on which alone the 
prosperity of the colony could be secured, that 
we are to look for a full share of the final suc- 
cess, that crowned the enterprise. 

To this it is to be ascribed that the country 
itself was not preoccupied by a crowded popu- 
lation of savages, like the West India Islands, 
like Mexico and Peru, who, placed upon a soil 
yielding almost spontaneously a superabundance 
of food, had multiplied into populous empires, 
and made a progress in the arts, which served 
no other purpose, than to give strength and per- 
manence to some of the most frightful systems of 
despotism, that ever afflicted humanity ; systems 
uniting all that is most horrible in depraved 
civilization and wild barbarity. The problem 
indeed is hard to be solved, in what way and by 
what steps a continent, possessed by savage 
tribes, is to be lawfully occupied and colonized 
by civilized man.* But this question was di- 
vested of much of its practical difficulty by the 
scantiness of the native population, which our 

* See Note K. 



39 

fathers found in New England, and the migra- 
tory life to which the necessity of the chace re- 
duced them. It is owing to this, that the annals 
of New England exhibit no scenes like those 
which were acted in Hispaniola, in Mexico, and 
Peru ; no tragedies like those of Anacoana, of 
Guatimozin, and of Atahualpa ; no statesman 
like Bovadilla ; no heroes like Pizarro and 
Cortes ; 

" No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle." 

The qualities of our climate and soil enter 
largely in other ways into that natural basis, on 
which our prosperity and our freedom have been 
reared. It is these which distinguish the smiling 
aspect of our busy, thriving villages from the 
lucrative desolation of the sugar islands, and 
all the wide spread, undescribed, indescribable 
miseries of the colonial system of modern Eu- 
rope, as it has existed beyond the barrier of 
these mighty oceans, in the unvisited, unpro- 
tected, and unavenged recesses of either India. 
We have had abundant reason to be contented 
with this austere sky, this hard unyielding soil. 
Poor as it is, it has left us no cause to sigh for 
the luxuries of the tropics, nor to covet the mines 
of the southern regions of our hemisphere. Our 



40 

rough and hardly subdued hill sides and barren 
plains have produced us that, which neither 
ores, nor spices, nor sweets could purchase, — 
which would not spring in the richest gardens 
of the despotic East. The compact numbers 
and the strength, the general intelligence and 
the civilization which, since the world began, 
were never exhibited beneath the sultry line, 
have been the precious product of this iron 
bound coast.* The rocks and the sands, which 
would yield us neither the cane nor the coffee 
tree, have yielded us, not only an abundance 
and a growth in resources, rarely consistent with 
the treacherous profusion of the tropical colo- 
nies, but the habits, the manners, the institu- 
tions, the industrious population, the schools 
and the churches, beyond all the wealth of all 
the Indies. 

" Man is the nobler growth our soil supplies, 
And souls are ripened in our northern skies." 

Describe to me a country, rich in veins of the 
precious metals, that is traversed by good roads. 
Inform me of the convenience of bridges, where 
the rivers roll over golden sands. Tell me of a 
thrifty, prosperous village of freemen, in the 

* See Note L, 



41 

miserable districts where every clod of the earth 
is kneaded up for diamonds, beneath the lash 
of the task master. No, never ! while the con- 
stitution, not of states, but of human nature, re- 
mains the same ; never, while the laws, not of 
civil society, but of God are unrepealed, will 
there be a hardy, virtuous, independent yeo- 
manry in regions where two acres of untilled 
banana will feed a hundred men.* It is idle to 
call that food, which can never feed a free, intel- 
ligent, industrious population. It is not food. 
It is dust ; it is chaff; it is ashes ; — there is no 
nourishment in it, if it be not carefully sown, 
and painfully reaped, by laborious freemen, on 
their own fee-simple acres. 

IV. Nor ought we omit to say, that if our 
fathers found, in the nature of the region to 
which they emigrated, the most favorable spot 
for the growth of a free and happy state, they 
themselves sprang from the land, the best 
adapted to furnish the habits and principles 
essential to the great undertaking. In an age 
that speculates, and speculates to important 
purpose, on the races of fossil animals, of which 

* See Note M, 



42 

no living specimen has existed since the deluge, 
and which compares, with curious criticism, the 
dialects of languages which ceased to be spoken 
a thousand years ago, it cannot be called idle to 
inquire which of the different countries of mo- 
dern Europe possesses the qualities, that best 
adapt it to become the parent nation of a new 
and free state. I know not in fact, what more 
momentous question in human affairs could be 
asked, than that which regards the most hope- 
ful lineage of a collective empire. But without 
engaging in so extensive a discussion, I may 
presume that there is not one who hears me, 
that does not feel it a matter of congratulation 
and joy, that our fathers were Englishmen. 

No character is perfect among nations, more 
than among men, nor is the office of the pane- 
gyrist more respectable towards the one than 
the other. But it must needs be conceded, that 
after our own country, England is the most 
favored abode of liberty ; or rather, that besides 
our own, it is the only land where liberty can 
be said to exist ; the only land where the voice 
of the sovereign is not stronger than the voice 
of the law. We can scarce revolve with pa- 
tience the idea, that we might have been a Spa- 



43 

nish colony, a Portuguese colony, or a Dutch 
colony ; we can scarcely compare with coolness 
the inheritance of those institutions, which were 
transmitted to us by our fathers, with that which 
we must have received from almost any other 
country ; absolute government, military despot- 
ism, privileged orders, and the holy inquisi- 
tion.* What would have been the condition 
of this flourishing and happy land, were these 
the institutions, on which its settlement had been 
founded ? There are, unfortunately, too many 
materials for answering this question, in the 
history of the Spanish and Portuguese settle- 
ments on the American continent, from the 
first moment of unrelenting waste and desola- 
tion, to the distractions and conflicts, of which 
we ourselves are the witnesses. What hope 
can there be for the colonies of nations, which 
possess themselves no spring of improvement ; 
and tolerate none in the regions over which they 
rule ; whose administration sets no bright ex- 
amples of political independence ; whose lan- 
guages send out no reviving lessons of sound 
and practical science, afraid of nothing that is 
true^of manly literature, of free speculation ; but 

* See Note N. 



44 

repeat, with every ship that crosses the Atlantic, 
the same debasing voice of despotism, credu- 
lity, superstition, and slavery. 

Let us here bring our general conceptions 
down to an example. The country called Bra- 
zil, and till lately subject to the kingdom of 
Portugal, (a kingdom more nearly of the size 
of Tennessee than of any other of the United 
States ;) — the country of Brazil, stretching from 
the mouth of the Oyapoco, in the fourth de- 
gree of north latitude, to the Banda Oriental 
in the thirty third degree of south, and from 
Peru to the Atlantic Ocean,* is, by computation, 
one tenth part more extensive than the entire 
territory of the United States. Our whole vast 
possessions, from the most southern point of 
Florida to the northeastern extremity of Maine, 
and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, — 
possessions which the Surveyor's chain has 
never marked out, over which tribes of Indians 
yet roam undisturbed, whose numbers, whose 
race, whose very names are unknown, — tracts 
unexplored, in which the wild hunter, half 
savage, half outlaw, has not yet startled the 
beaver, on the still and solitary banks of his 

* See Note O. 



45 

hereditary stream, — I say this mighty territory is 
one tenth smaller than Brazil. And now name 
to me a book in the Portuguese language, 
where a Brazilian could read so much as the 
elements of liberty. Name to me a law in 
the Portuguese code, to protect his property 
from confiscation and himself from the rack 
or the stake, whenever the minister shall give 
the nod. Name me an institution in the whole 
Portuguese system, in the remotest degree 
favorable to the progress and happiness of 
man. — And yet it is from this despised cor- 
ner of Europe, that all the seed must come, 
to sow this mighty land. It is from this de- 
based source that all the influences have gone 
forth, which have for three centuries actually 
decided, and for centuries more must deci- 
sively influence the destinies of these all but 
boundless territories.* 

What citizen of our republic is not grate- 
ful in the contrast which our history presents ? 
— Who does not feel, what reflecting Ame- 
rican does not acknowledge, the incalculable 
advantages derived to this land, out of the 

* See Note P. 

6 



46 

deep fountains of civil, intellectual, and moral 
trutji, from w hid) we have drawn in England ? — 
What American does not feel proud that he 
is descended from the countrymen of Bacon, 
of Newton, and of Locke ? — Who does not 
know, that while every pulse of civil liberty 
in the heart of the British empire beat warm 
and full in the bosom of our fathers ; the so- 
briety, the firmness, and the dignity with which 
the cause of fvee principles struggled into ex- 
istence here, constantly found encouragement 
and countenance from the sons of liberty there ? 
— Who does not remember that when the pil- 
grims went over the sea, the prayers of the 
faithful British confessors, in all the quarters 
of their dispersion, went over with them, while 
their aching eyes were strained, till the star 
of hope should go up in the western skies ? — 
And who will ever forget that in that eventful 
struggle, which severed this mighty empire 
from the British crown, there was not heard, 
throujrhout our continent in arms, a voice 
which spoke louder for the rights of America, 
than thcit of Burke or of Chatham, within the 
walls of the British parliament, and at the foot 
of the British throne ? — No, for myself, I can 



47 

truly say, that after my native land, I feel a 
tenderness and a reverence for that of my 
fathers. The pride I take in my own country 
makes me respect tliat from which we are 
sprung. In touching the soil of England, I 
seem to return like a descendant to the old 
family seat ; — to come back to the abode of an 
aged, the tomb of a departed parent. I acknow- 
ledge this great consanguinity of nations. The 
sound of my native language beyond the sea, is 
a music to my ear, beyond the richest strains of 
Tuscan softness, or Castillian majesty. — I am 
not yet in a land of strangers, while surrounded 
by the manners, the habits, the forms, in 
which I have been brought up. I wander de- 
lighted through a thousand scenes, which the 
historians, the poets have made familiar to 
us, — of which the names are interwoven with 
our earliest associations. I tread with reve- 
rence the spots, where I can retrace the foot- 
steps of our suffering fathers ; the pleasant 
land of their birth has a claim on my heart. 
It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land, 
rich in the memories of the great and good ; 
the martyrs of liberty, the exiled heralds of 
truth ; and richer as the parent of this land 
of promise in the west. 



48 

[ am not, — I need not say I am not, — the 
panegyrist of England. I am not dazzled by 
her riches, nor awed by her power. The 
sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet, stars, 
garters, and blue ribbons seem to me poor 
things for great men to contend for. Nor 
is my admiration awakened by her armies, 
mustered for the battles of Europe ; her navies, 
overshadowing the ocean ; nor her empire 
grasping the farthest east. It is these, and 
the price of guilt and blood by which they 
are maintained, which are the cause why no 
friend of liberty can salute her with undivi- 
ded affections. But it is the refuge of free 
principles, though often persecuted ; the school 
of religious liberty, the more precious for 
the struggles to which it has been called ; 
the tombs of those who have reflected honor 
on all who speak the English tongue ; it 
is the birthplace of our fathers, the home 
of the pilgrims ; it is these which I love and 
venerate in England. I should feel ashamed 
of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did 
I not also feel it for a land like this. In 
an American it would seem to me degene- 
rate and ungrateful, to hang with passion 



49 

upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and 
follow without emotion the nearer and plainer 
footsteps of Shakspeare and Milton ; and I 
should think him cold in his love for his 
native land, who felt no melting in his heart 
for that other native land, which holds the 
ashes of his forefathers. 

V. But it was not enough that our fathers 
were of England : the masters of Ireland, and 
the lords of Hindostan are of England too. 
But our fathers were Englishmen, aggrieved, 
persecuted, and banished. It is a princi- 
ple, amply borne out by the history of the 
great and powerful nations of the earth, and 
by that of none more than the country of 
which we speak, that the best fruits and 
choicest action of the commendable qualities 
of the national character, are to be found on 
the side of the oppressed few, and not of 
the triumphant many. As in private cha- 
racter, adversity is often requisite to give a 
proper direction and temper to strong quali- 
ties ; so the noblest traits of national cha- 
racter, even under the freest and most in- 
dependent of hereditary governments, are com- 



50 

tnonly to be sought in the ranks of a pro- 
testing minority, or of a dissenting sect. Never 
was this truth more clearly illustrated than 
in the settlement of New England. 

Could a common calculation of policy have 
dictated the terms of that settlement, no doubt 
our foundations would have been laid beneath 
the royal smile. Convoys and navies would 
have been solicited to waft our fathers to the 
coast ; armies, to defend the infant communi- 
ties ; and the flattering patronage of princes 
and lords, to espouse their interests in the coun- 
cils of the mother country. Happy, that our 
fathers enjoyed no such patronage ; happy, that 
they fell into no such protecting hands; happy, 
that our foundations were silently and deeply 
cast in quiet insignificance, beneath a charter of 
banishment, persecution, and contempt ; so that 
when the royal arm was at length outstretched 
against us, instead of a submissive child, tied 
down by former graces, it found a youthful 
giant in the land, born amidst hardships, and 
nourished on the rocks, indebted for no favors, 
and owing no duty. From the dark portals 
of the star chamber, and in the stern text of the 
acts of uniformity, the pilgrims received a com- 



51 

mission, more efficient, than any that ever bore 
the royal seal. Tlieir banishment to Holland 
was fortunate ; the decline of their little com- 
pany in the strange land was fortunate ; the 
difficulties which they experienced in getting 
the royal consent to banish themselves to this 
wilderness were fortunate ; all the tears and 
heart breakings of that ever memorable parting 
at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on 
the rising destinies of New England. All this 
purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough 
touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncer- 
tain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, sol- 
emn, self-denying expedition, and required of 
those who engaged in it, to be so too. They 
cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness 
over the cause, and if this sometimes deep- 
ened into melancholy and bitterness, can we 
find no apology for such a human weakness ? 

It is sad indeed to reflect on the disasters, 
which the little band of pilgrims encountered. 
Sad to see a portion of them, the prey of unre- 
lenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an 
unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon 
obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into 
one vessel ; one hundred persons, besides the 



52 

ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and 
sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the 
long, cold, and weary autumnal passage ; of the 
landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal 
season ; where they are deserted before long by 
the ship, which had brought them, and which 
seemed their only hold upon the world of fellow 
men, a prey to the elements and to want, and 
fearfully ignorant of the numbers, the power, 
and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled 
the unexplored continent, upon whose verge they 
had ventured. But all this wrought together 
for good. These trials of wandering and exile 
of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness and the 
savage foe were the final assurance of success.* 
It was these that put far away from our fathers' 
cause, all patrician softness, all hereditary claims 
to preeminence. No effeminate nobility crowd- 
ed into the dark and austere ranks of the pil- 
grims. No Carr nor Villiers would lead on the 
ill provided band of despised Puritans. No 
well endowed clergy were on the alert, to quit 
their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hie- 
rarchy in the frozen wilderness. No craving 
governors were anxious to be sent over to our 

* See IVotP Q 



53 

cheerless El Dorados of ice and of snow. No, 
they could not say they had encouraged, patron- 
ised, or helped the pilgrims ; their own cares, 
their own labors, their own councils, their own 
blood, contrived all, achieved all, bore all, 
sealed all. They could not afterwards fairly 
pretend to reap where they had not strewn ; and 
as our fathers reared this broad and solid fabric 
with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely 
tolerated, it did not fall when the favor, which 
had always been withholden, was changed into 
wrath; when the arm, which had never sup- 
ported, was raised to destroy. 

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, ad- 
venturous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn 
hope, freighted with the prospects of a future 
state, and bound across the unknown sea. I 
behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, 
the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise 
and set, and weeks and months pass, and win- 
ter surprises them on the deep, but brings 
them not the sight of the wished for shore. I 
see them now scantily supplied with provisions, 
crowded almost to suffocation in their illstored 
prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous 
route ; — and now driven in fury before the 
7 



54 

rasping tempest, on the high and giddy waves. 
The awful voice of the storm howls through 
the rigging. The laboring masts seem strain- 
ing from their base ; — the dismal sound of the 
pumps is heard ; — the ship leaps, as it were, 
madly, from billow to billow ; — the ocean 
breaks, and settles with engulphing floods over 
the floating deck, and beats with deadening, 
shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. — 
I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing 
their all but desperate undertaking, and landed 
at last, after a five months passage, on the ice 
clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary from 
the voyage, — poorly armed, scantily provisioned, 
depending on the charity of their ship-master 
for a draught of beer on board, drinking 
nothing but water on shore, — without shelter, — 
without means, — surrounded by hostile tribes. 
Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, 
on any principle of human probability, what 
shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. 
— Tell me, man of military science, in how ma- 
ny months were they all swept ofl" by the thirty 
savage tribes, enumerated within the early lim- 
its of New England ? Tell me, politician, how 
long did this shadow of a colony, on which 



55 

your conventions and treaties had not smiled, 
languish on the distant coast ? Student of his- 
tory, compare for me the baffled projects, the de- 
serted settlements, the abandoned adventures of 
other times, and find the parallel of this. Was 
it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless 
heads of women and children ; was it hard la- 
bor and spare meals ; — was it disease, — was it 
the tomahawk, — was it the deep malady of a 
blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken 
heart, aching in its last moments, at the recol- 
lection of the loved and left, beyond the sea ; 
was it some, or all of these united, that hurried 
this forsaken company to their melancholy fate ? 
— And is it possible that neither of these 
causes, that not all combined, were able to blast 
this bud of hope ? — Is it possible, that from a 
beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so 
much of admiration as of pity, there has gone 
forth a progress so steady, a growth so won- 
derful, an expansion so ample, a reality so 
important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so 
glorious ? 

Such, in a very inadequate statement, are 
some of the circumstances under which the set- 



56 

tlement of our country began. The historian 
of Massachusetts, after having given a brief no- 
tice of Carver, of Bradford, of WinsloAV, of 
Brewster, of Standish, and others, adds, " These 
were the founders of the colony of Plymouth. 
The settlement of this colony occasioned the 
settlement of Massachusetts Bay ; which was 
the source of all the other colonies of New Eng- 
land. Virginia was in a dying state, and seem- 
ed to revive and flourish from the example of 
New England. I am not preserving from obli- 
vion," continues he, " the names of heroes whose 
chief merit is the overthrow of cities, of pro- 
vinces, and empires ; but the names of the foun- 
ders of a flourishing town and colony, if not of 
the whole British empire in America."* This 
was the judicious reflection of Hutchinson sixty 
years ago, when the greatest tribute to be paid 
to the Fathers of Plymouth was, that they took 
the lead in colonizing the British possessions in 
America. What then ought to be our emotions, 
as we meet on this anniversary, upon the spot, 
where the first successful foundations of the 
great American republic were laid ? 

* Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. U. Appendix, 
pag-e 463. 



57 

Within a short period, an incident has oc- 
curred, which of itself connects, in the most gra- 
tifying association, the early settlement of New 
England with the present growth and prosperity 
of our wide extended republic. Within the past 
year, the sovereign hand of this great confede- 
racy of nations has been extended for the re- 
storation and security of the harbor, where, on 
the day we celebrate, the germ of the future 
growth of America was comprehended within one 
weather beaten vessel, tossing upon the tide, on 
board of which, in the words of Hutchinson, the 
fathers of New England, by a solemn instrument, 
'^ formed themselves into a proper democracy." 
Two centuries only have elapsed, and we behold 
a great American representation convened, from 
twenty four independent and flourishing repub- 
lics, taking under their patronage the local inte- 
rests of the spot where our fathers landed, and 
providing in the same act of appropriation, for 
the removal of obstacles in the Mississippi and 
the repair of Plymouth beach. I know not in 
what words a more beautiful commentary could 
be written, on our early infancy or our happy 
growth. There were members of the national 
Congress which made that appropriation, I will 



58 

Jiot say from distant states, but from different 
climates ; from regions which the sun in the 
heavens does not reach in the same hour that 
he rises on us. Happy community of protec- 
tion ! Glorious expansion of brotherhood ! Bless- 
ed fulfilment of that first timorous hope, that 
warmed the bosoms of our fathers ! 

Nor is it even our mighty territory, to which 
the influence of the principles and example of 
the fathers of New England is confined. While 
I utter the words, a constitution of republican 
government, closely imitated from ours, is going 
into operation in the states of the Mexican 
confederation, a region more extensive than all 
our territories east of the Mississippi.* Farther 
south, the provinces of central America, the re- 
public of Guatimala, a country equal in magni- 
tude to our Atlantic states, has sent its envoys 
to solicit an union with us. Will posterity be- 
lieve that such an offer was made and refused, 
in the age that saw England and Spain rushing 
into war, for the possession of a few uninhabited 
islets on the coast of Patagonia ? Pass the isth- 
mus of Darien, and we behold the sister repub- 

* See Note R. 



59 

lie of Colombia, a realm two thirds as large as 
Europe, ratifying her first solemn treaty of amity 
and commerce with the United States ; w^hile still 
onward to the south, in the valleys of the Chi- 
lian Andes, and on the banks of the La Plata, 
in states not less vast than those already named, 
constitutions of republican government are in 
prosperous operation, founded on our principles, 
and modelled on our forms. When our com- 
missioners visited those countries in 1817, they 
found the books most universally read among 
the people, were the constitutions of the United 
States, and of the several states, translated into 
the language of the country ; while the public 
journals were filled with extracts from the cele- 
brated " Defence" of these constitutions, written 
by that venerable descendant of the Pilgrims, 
who still lives to witness the prosperous opera- 
tion of the governments, which he did so much 
to establish.* 

I do not fear that we shall be accused of ex- 
travagance in the enthusiasm we feel at a train 
of events of such astonishing magnitude, novel- 
ty, and consequence, connected by association « 

• f?ce Note S. 



60 

so intimate, with the day we now hail ; with the 
events we now celebrate ; with the pilgrim fa- 
thers of New Englcind. Victims of persecution! 
how wide an empire acknowledges the sway of 
your principles ! Apostles of liberty ! what mil- 
lions attest the authenticity of your mission ! 
Meek champions of truth, no stain of private 
interest or of innocent blood is on the spotless 
garments of your renown ! The great continents 
of America have become, at length, the theatre 
of your achievements ; the Atlantic and the Pa- 
cific, the highways of communication, on which 
your principles, your institutions, your example 
are borne. From the oldest abodes of civiliza- 
tion, the venerable plains of Greece, to the 
scarcely explored range of the Cordilleras, the 
impulse you gave at length is felt. While other 
regions revere you as the leaders of this great 
march of humanity, we are met on this joyful 
day, to offer to your memories our tribute of 
filial affection. The sons and daughters of the 
Pilgrims, we have assembled on the spot where 
you, our suflfering fathers, set foot on this happy 
shore. Happy indeed, it has been for us. O that 
you could have enjoyed those blessings, which 
you prepared for your children. Could our com- 



61 

fortable homes have shielded you from the wintry 
air ; could our abundant harvests have supplied 
you in time of famine ; could the broad shield 
of our beloved country have sheltered you from 
the visitations of arbitrary power ! We come in 
our prosperity to remember your trials ; and 
here on the spot where New England began to 
be, we come to learn of our pilgrim fathers a 
deep and lasting lesson of virtue, enterprise, 
patience, zeal, and faith ! 



NOTES. 



Note A. Page 13. 

The object of this Discourse is of course more immediately confined to 
New England, as the part of the country most directly afl'ected by 
the settlement of Plymouth. Some of the topics, however, apply 
equally to all parts of America ; others to all the English Colonies 
on this Continent. It was not thought necessary to interrupt the 
train of remark, in each single case, to modify it in reference to this 
qualification. New England alone is generally mentioned, and the 
more or less extensive application of each separate topic of observa- 
tion is left to be made by the intelligent. 

Note B. Page 14. 

It is stated by Peter Martyr, the first writer on the discovery of 
America, that two of the vessels of Columbus were without decks. 
" Ex regio fisco destinata sunt tria Navigia ; unum onerarium cave- 
atum, alia duo levia mercatoria nne caveis, quee ab Hispanis cara- 
velae vocantur." (De rebus Oceancis, p. 2.) Peter Martyr,* who had 
lived and served long, as soldier and ambassador, in Spain, cannot be 
supposed to have been ignorant of the sense, in which the word Ca:avel 
was used by the Spaniards. At the same time, it must be allowed to be a 
circumstance almost incredible, that an expedition, like that of Columbus, 
should be fitted out, with two out of three vessels unprovided with decks. 
In Bossi's Vita di Cristofero Colombo, published at Milan in 1818, is an 
able annotation on the subject of the Caravels. It is there asserted, on 
the credit of an Italian Marine Dictionary, (published at Milan in 1813, in 
three vols. 4to. and bearing a high character,) that the word " Caravella 
is known in the Mediterranean, as indicating the larger Turkish ships of 
war, with a high poop ; but that in Portugal it denotes a vessel of from 
120 to 140 tons." Du Cange in his Glossary expresses the opinion, that 
it is a word of Italian origin, an opinion, which de Bossi condemns, re- 
garding it rather as Turkish or Arabic, and probably introduced into the 



* He must be carefully distinguished from Peter Martyr, the -Reformer, 
who taught for some time in England, and who flourished near a half 
century after the historian The name of Peter Martyr is in either case 
the Christian name only, and to avoid the confusion, it might be expe- 
dient to use their family names. That of the reformer was Vermigli, 
that of the historian dAnghiera. An account of the former is given in 
Tiraboschi, VII. 327 ; of the latter, in the same author, VIII. 3$6. 



64 

European languages by the Moors. These authors, however, are appa- 
rently both in an error. The true origin of the term is, no doubt, given 
iu Ferrarii origines lingua; Italira;, as follows; " Caravela navigii minoris 
genus : Sarabus ; Gritce KapaSiov." The primitive meaning of the Latin 
Carubus and the Greek KapdSiov is Crab, a word, in fact, derived from 
them. In cither language, the word was used to signify a vessel or a boat. 
The word Kapd6iov has descended to the modern Greeks, who use KapdSi 
for a vessel, iu general ; and Isidore, a late Ijatin writer, in his Origines, 
lib. xix. c. 1, defines a Carabus to be a "small skilTmade of osiers, which, 
covered with raw leather, forma a sort of boat." There seems, therefore, 
mucii reason to respect the authority of llie historian fir.vt quoted, who 
describes the Caravel of the Spaniards as a light open vessel. This mi- 
nuteness of criticism will, I hope, be pardoned on a sulyect so closely 
connected with the discovery of America. 

Having in the beginning of ihis note called Peter Martyr d'Anghierathe 
first writer, who commemorates Columbus, (and so he is generally reputed,) 
it should be observed, that he is entitled to this credit of precedence, by a 
very slight priority. The dedication of his Decades bears date Prid Calend. 
October, or September 30, 1516. In November of the same year, was pub- 
lished a Polygiott Psalter, at Genoa, containing the Psalms in Hebrew, 
Greek, Arabic, and Chaldee, in whicli, in the form of a note on Psalm xix, 
5. Tlieir line is gone out llirovgli all the earth, and their words to the end of 
the tvorld, is given an account of Columbus and his discoveries, filling seven 
octavo pages, as copied in a work of de Murr. This is doubtless the first 
account of Columbus, for P. Martyr d'Anghiera introduces him simply as 
" Ligur vir." The editor of this Psalter and author of the note in ques- 
tion, was Guistiuiani, a bishop, and as he speaks of Columbus as a native 
of Genoa, at a period so early, and mentions the bequest made by Colum- 
bus of the tenth part of his estates to the city of Genoa, his authority is 
of great weight in settling the contested points of the place of the birth 
of Columbus, and the authenticity of his will. Since the appearance, 
however, of the important and curious work entitled Codice diplomatic© 
Colombo- Americano ossia raccolta di ducunienti originali e inediti, spet- 
tanti a Christofero Colombo, alia scoperta e alio governo dell' America, 
Genoa, 1823, these questions may be considered as put at rest. 

This last very curious work, which has not yet attracted a due degree 
of notice from the public, though containing more official details relative 
to Columbus than all the other works hitherto published relative to Ame- 
rica, was printed by order of the magistrates of Genoa. An account of 
the English translation of it maybe found in the North American Review 
for April last, page 415. Two manuscripts, copies of the giants, patents, 
&ic. of the Spanish government to Columbus (from one of whirli the work 
is now at length printed) were made by order of Columbus himself, and 
sent to his friend Oderigo, in Genoa. In 1670, the descendant of Oderigo 
presented the two manuscripts to the magistracy at Genoa. During the 
French Kevolution one of the manuscripts was taken to Paris, and has 
not yet been restored to Genoa. The other was supposed to be lost, till 
on the death of Count Micheloni Cambiasi, a Senator of Genoa, it was 
advertised for sale among his books, but immediately claimed as public 
property. It has since been deposited in a monument erected for the 
})urp<)se, and from it the work in question is printed. 

Whether the two manuscri])ts thus mentioned be the only ones in exist- 
ence may admit of doubt. Wlicu I was in Florence in IS18, a small folio 
manuscript was brought to me, written on parchment, apparently two or 
three centuries old, in binding once very rich, but now worn, containing 



65 

a series of documents in Latin and Spanish, mostly the latter, with the 
following title on the first blank page, " Treslado de las Bullas del Papa 
Alexandro VI, de la Concession de las Indias y los titulos, privilegios, y 
cedulas reales, que se dieron a Christoval Colon." — I was led by this title 
to purchase the work ; but, deterred by the abundant use of abbreviations 
and a limited acquaintance with the language, I made no attempt for 
several years to read it. My attention having been turned again to it, by 
the publication of the work at Genoa, and having had an oiiportunity, 
by the kindness of a friend, of seeing a copy of it, the only one perhaps 
in this part of the country, I was surprised to find my manuscript, as far 
as it goes, nearly identical in its contents with that of Genoa, supposed 
to be one of the only two in existence. My manuscript consists of about 
eii^ldy closely written folio pages, which coincide precisely with the text 
of the first thirty sevcji documents, contained in two hundred and forty 
pages of the Genoese volume. A few more documents, wanting in my 
manuscript, are found in the Genoese work ; and a second Bull of Alex- 
ander VI, in Latin, is contained in the former, and is wanting in the 
latter. 

In the last of the documents, contained in the Genoese volume, and 
wanting in my manuscript, we read as follows ; 

" Los originates destos privillegios y cartas y cedulas y otras muchas 
cartas de sus Ahezas e otras escripturas, tocantes al Senor Almirante, 
estan en el monastcrio de Sancta Maria de las Cuevas de Sevilla. 

" Otrosy esta, en el dicho Monasterio un libro traslado de los privi- 
legios e cartas susodichos, semejante que esto. 

" Otro traslado levo este ano de M. D IL y tiene Alonso Sanchez de 
Carvajal a las Yndias, escripto en papel e abtorizado. 
" Otro traslado en pergamino tal como este." 

Mention is here accordingly made of four copies of these documents, 
three on parchment and one on paper. Two of them were sent by Co- 
lumbus himself to Genoa. Whether that procured by me at Florence be 
a third ; whether it be that supposed to be at Paris ; or, what is more 
probable perhaps, another copy, there are at present no m-cans of decid- 
ing. I hope to have in my power, on some other occasion, to describe it 
more accurately, particularly in those respects, in which it differs from 
the Genoese volume. 

Note C. Page 15. 

It is probable that the great extent, to which the business of fishing on 
the banks of Newfoundland and the New England coasts was early car- 
ried, was one chief cause of the familiarity of men with the idea of the 
passage across the Atlantic, and consequently of the readiness of our 
forefathers to undertake it. It appears, that as early as 1578, there were 
employed in this fishery, of Spaniards 100 sail, besides 20 or 30 in the 
whale fishery on the same coasts ; of Portuguese 50 ; of French 150 ; of 
English from 30 to 50. (Hakluyl, Vol. III. p. 132, cited in the JVorth Ame- 
rican Revieiv for July, 1824, p. 140.) Captain Smith remarks, that ac- 
cording to " Whitbourne's discovery of Newfoundland," the banks and 
coasts in that region were visited by 250 sail of English fishermen annu- 
allv. (Vol. II. p. 246, Richmond Edition.) So important was this work of 
Whitbourne esteemed for the encouragement of the British fisheries that, 
by an order in Council, dated 12th of April, 1622, it was ordered to be 
distributed to every parish in the kingdom. (Ancient Right of the English 
Nation to the American Fisheries, &.c. London, 1764.) The last cited 
valuable treatise contains (page 50) an important statement of the amount 



66 

of the French fishery in 1745, " made in that year, at the desire of the 
Governor of the Massachusetts province, by Mr Thomas Kilby." By this 
account, it appears that " 564 ships in all, and 27,500 men were yearly 
employed from France on the banks of Newfoundland." The extent of 
the British fisheries, in this quarter, on an average of three years ending 
1773, may be seen in Lord Sheffield's Observations on the Commerce of 
the American States, 6th Ed. p. 64. From one ol the documents in the 
work entitled, " The Fisheries and the Mississippi," by the present Sec- 
retary of State, It appears that before 1810, there were annually employed 
from the United States 1282 vessels in the Bank, Bay, and Labrador 
fisheries, navigated by 10,459 men. — See also Seybert's Statistics, p. 333. 

Note D. Page 29. 

" From the commencement of the religious war in Germany to the 
peace of Westphalia, scarce any thing great or memorable occurred in 
the European political world, with which the reformation was not essen- 
tially connected. Every event in the history of the world in this interval, 
if not directly occasioned, was nearly influenced by this religious revolu- 
tion, and every state, great or small, remotely or directly experienced its 
influence." Sc/«//er'« Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen Krieges. I. 1. 

Note E. Page 29. 

The close connexion of the religious and political system of Rome is 
sufficiently shown by the authority of Cicero. — He begins the Oration 
pro domo sua, in these words, cum multa divinitus, Pontifices, a majori- 
bus nostris inventa afque instituta sunt ; tum nihil praeclarius quam quod 
eosdem et religionibus deorum immortalium et summse Reipublica? praeesse 
voluerunt; ut aniplissimi et clarissimi cives rempublicam bene gerendo 
religiones sapienter interpretando conservarcnt. Whence is it that a prin- 
ciple should be commended by so wise a statesman as Cicero, and in 
point of experience have been found so salutary in Rome, which has 
been uniformly productive of evil in modern states and condemned by 
the soundest politicians .' — The cause of the apparent anomaly is no 
doubt to be found in the organization of the church as a separate insti- 
tution, having its own principles of growth and decline ; and the organi- 
zation of the clergy as a body having its own interest. — Such a body, 
when entrusted with power in the state, will be apt to exercise it under 
the influence of the esprit du corps for its own advancement. In Rome, 
the public religion rested upon no other sanction than any other part of 
the public system and the ministers of religion, not belonging to a sep- 
arate consecrated body, were not liable to be influenced by any other 
than reasons of state in the administration of their religious functions. 
Although such a state of things might seem unfriendly to religious influ- 
ence, it produced not that efiect on the Romans, who may be character- 
ized, during the Republic, as a religious people. — 

A list of the Pontifices Maximi may be found at the close of the 
learned treatise of Bosii de pontifict maximo RomeE veteris. It contains 
the most familiar names in the civil history of Rome. After the fall of 
the Republic, the Emperors regularly assumed the title of Pontifex Maxi- 
mus, as is shown in another treatise of the same author, Bosii de Pon- 
tificatu maximo imperii Romani exercitatio. What is somewhat singular 
is, that this title of High Priest, originating in the ancient Roman pagan- 
ism, should have been retained by the Christian emperors down to Gra- 
tian. It was afterwards adopted by the Popes, a circumstance which 
appears to have escaped Middleton in his letter from Rome. 



67 

The oft quoted exclamation of Dante, shows at how early a period the 
principle of the reformation had suggested itself to the independent 
thinkers. 

Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu niadre, 

Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote, 

Che da te prese il primo ricco padre. 

Note F. Page 30. 

The treatment which Pope Boniface VIII received from Philip the fair 
in the fourteenth century, was as much more audacious than any thing in 
the recent history of the Papal see, as the power of Boniface was great- 
er than that of Pius VII. Philip not only returned the most con- 
temptuous answers to the Pope's letters, but sent William de Nogaret, 
(justly called by Mosheim, the most intrepid and inveterate enemy of the 
Pope before Luther) into Italy to excite a sedition, to seize the person of 
Boniface and bring him in chains to Lyons. This he so far effected as 
to get possession of the Pope, whom he loaded with indignities, and even 
struck on the head with an iron gauntlet. Though rescued by the citi- 
zens of Anagni, from the hands of de Nogaret, he died soon after " of the 
rage and anguish into which these insults threw him." It is useful to re- 
cal these traits of history, to enable us to judge more impartially of con- 
temporary events. 

Note G. Page 30. 

The progress of religious reform, to which I have alluded, concerns 
only the connexion of church and state. As this connexion was more 
intimate in the Catholic church, than in any other, that church was so far 
the most corrupt. And as this connexion was unquestionably as preju- 
dicial to the church, as to the state, the catholics have really as much 
reason to rejoice in the reformation as the protestants. There can be but 
little doubt, in the mind of any one who reads the history of the middle 
ages, that the interests of no communion of Christians have been more 
advanced by the reformation, than of that which regards the Pope as its 
head. 

In like manner, in speaking of the reform carried on in England by the 
dissenters and puritans, no other reference is had than to the political 
question of the union of church and state. This union, as existing in 
England, I consider a great political abuse. As to the doctrinal points 
agitated between the catholics and protestants ; the church of England 
and dissenters ; however important they may have been at different times 
thought, so long as they rested within the limits of speculative theology, 
their settlement, one way or the other, could have had but little effect on 
the condition of states. 

Note H. Page 31. 

Bishop Burnet has discriminated the Presbyterians and Independents, 
in the following manner. " The main difference between these was, that 
the Presbyterians seemed reconcilable to the church ; for they loved 
episcopal ordination and a liturgy, and upon some amendments seemed 
disposed to come into the church ; and they liked the civil government 
and limited monarchy. But as the independents were for a common- 
wealth in the state, so they put all the power in the church in the people, 
and thought that their choice was an ordination : nor did they approve of 
set forms of worship." History of his own Times. II. 406. 



68 

This character, it must be remembered, was given of the Indepeu 
dents, after the times of the commonwealth in England. At the period 
of the first emigrations to New England, there is no reason for accusing 
the independents of disaffection to the civil government. 

In 1619, Mr. Robinson jiublished, at Leyden, " Apologia pro exulibus An- 
glis (jui Brownistx vidgo appellantur." Mosheim conjectures that the 
name of Imhpendenls may have grown out of a word in tlic following sen- 
tence, in which the leading principle of their religious peculiarities is ex- 
pressed, " Coptum quemlibet particularem esse totam, intcgram, et perfect- 
am ecclesiam ex suis partibus constantem, immediate et independenter 
(quoad alias ecclesias) sub ipso Christo." Jipologia, Cap. V.}). 22. Cited 
in Moshthn, V. 388. 

Note I. Page 34. 

A considerable, and the most elaborate part of Burke's Reflections on 
the Revolution in France, is occupied in refuting the assertion of Dr 
Price, that by the Revolution in 1688, the English people acquired " the 
right to choose their own governors, to cashier them for misconduct, and 
to frame a government for themselves." It is certainly too much to say, 
in unlimited terms, that the English Constitution, as fixed at the Revolu- 
tion, gives a right of choosing or removing the king. On the other hand, 
it is equally certain that both at, after, and before the Revolution, Parlia- 
ment claimed and exercised the right of choosing and deposing the king 
and limiting the succession. Burke expresses himself thus : " So far is it 
from being true that we acquired a right, by the Revolution, to elect our 
kings, that if we had possessed it before, the English nation did, at that 
time, most solemnly renounce and abdicate it for themselves, and for all 
theur posterity forever. These gentlemen [Dr Price and his part\'] may 
value themselves as much as they please on their whig principles ; but I 
never desire to be thought a better whig than Lord Somers," &.c. 

Lord Somers is thus particularly appealed to by Mr Burke, in support 
of his construction of the Constitution, because the declaration of right 
was drawn by him. But it is somewhat remarkable that Burke should 
have insisted so much on this authority, for Lord Somers printed a work 
in 1710, of which the title sufficiently shows the object : — " A brief history 
of the succession of the Crown of England ; wherein facts collected from 
the best authorities are opposed to the novel assertors of indefeasible 
hereditary right." After having in this work, gone through with a mas- 
terly deduction of the history of the Englisli crown from the esta- 
blishment of it, Lord Somers sums up, as follows : " I shall leave every 
man to make his own observations on this historical deduction. But this 
one observation I believe all men must make from it ; that it hath been 
the constant opinion of all ages, that the Parliament of England had an 
unquestionable power to limit, restrain, and qualify the succession as they 
pleased, and that in all ages they have put their power in practice ; and 
that the historian* had reason for saying, that seldom or never the third 
heir in a right descent enjoyed the crown of England !" 

Note K. Page 38. 

The settlements made by civilized Europeans on the coasts of America 
and of other countries occupied by savages, have evidently proceeded on 
the assumption of peculiar principles of national or rather social law. 

* ' Daniel, fol. 5. in vita H. I.' 



69 

Ifiot oaly the arbitrary kings of Spain and Portugal, but the constitutional 
king of England, claimed a right of occupying, possessing, and granting 
to individuals or companies, all newly discovered heathen lands; nor was 
it admitted that the natives had any right to the soil, in the same sense 
that citizens of one country acknowledge each other's rights, and the go- 
vernments of friendly nations the rights of each other's subjects. There 
does not seem to be any principle ol natural law, by which savage tribes 
can claim full right to the whole of the widest region, which they wander 
over in the chase, and to the perpetual exclusion of civilized settlers. If 
then savage nations have not a full right, what right have they ; and to 
how much territory have they any right .'' These are questions not yet well 
settled. — What is the ground and extent of the obligation, which a civil- 
ized community is under, by inalienable resei-vations of land and by libe- 
ral appropriations of money, to introduce the arts of civilized life among 
border tribes of a different race and language, w ith whom no intermixture 
of blood can take place without degeneracy .' — As modes of diffusing civili- 
zation most widely, is the choice well established between the increase of a 
civilized population and civilizing a barbarous one.'' These questions pre- 
sent themselves in their most delicate form, in the present controversy in 
the state of Georgia, and it may be doubted whether they are fully solved 
on the gent-ral notions of humanity usually applied to them, however 
Strong and natural the prepossession felt at a distance in favor of a weaker 
party. 

Note L. Page 40. 

As it is now generally admitted that a temperate climate is essential to 
the attainment of the highe^-t degrees of civilization, (Heeren's Ideen Th. 
V. Allgemeiiie Vorerinnerungen^ there is more reason than ever to depart 
from the ancient phraseology of Zones, in the use of which we almost 
unconsciously connect the idea of certain degrees of heat or cold with 
certain parallels of latitude. The remarks in the text, relative to tropical 
regions, must of coiu-se be confined to tropical climates. Our own conti- 
nents present the most striking instances of the change of climate ; and 
of uatui al productions, state of civilization, and social character, as affect- 
ed by climate ; in travelling, on the same parallel, from the coasts to the 
sujnmits of the mountains. 

The Atlas of Humboldt contains a curious comparative view of the dif- 
ferent altitude of the limit of perpetual congelation in different latitudes. 
And his Essay on Isothermal lines, as well as various parts of his large 
works, furnish the most instructive illustrations of the same subject. See 
particularly his Relation Historique, Tom II p. 350. 

Note M. Page 41. 

"I doubt if there be another plant upon the face of the earth, which, 
on a small space of soil, produces a quantity of nutritious substance so 
considerable as the banana. Eight or nine months after the sucker is 
planted, the banana tree begins to develope its cluster, and the fruit may 
be gatheied the tenth or eleventh month. When the stalk is cut, there is 
constantly found among the numerous shoots, which have sprung from 
the roots, a sprout (pimpollu) which with two thirds the height of the pa- 
rent plant, bears fruh three months later. It is thus that a plantation of 
banana, which is called in the Spanish colonies a Platnnar, perpetuates 
itself without any other care than that of cutting the stalks, whose fruit 
has ripened, and digging the earth slightly about the roots once or twice 



70 

a year. A spot of ground of one hundred square metres (about cue tentii 
more than so many square yards) in surface, is suflicient to contain at 
least from thirty to forty banana plants. This spot of ground, reckoning 
the weight of tl-.c cluster only at from about thirty five to forty five pounds, 
would yield nearly four thousand five hundred weight of food. What a 
difference between this product and that of the cereal gramina, in the 
most fertile parts of Europe. Wheat, supposing it sown and not planted, 
in the Chinese way, and calculating on the basis of a tenfold increase, 
does not produce, on a himdred square metres, more than about thirty- 
three pounds weight of grain. In France the legal acre of 54,995 square 
feet, is sown broadcast in very good land, with about l&> pounds of 
grain, on medium and poor land witli from 2(X) to 220 pounds ; and the 
produce varies from 1()00 to 2500 pounds the acre. The potato, ac- 
cording to M. Tessier yields in Europe, on one Imndred square metres of 
land well manured, about one hundred pounds of the root ; or from four 
to six thousand pounds on the acre of France. The product of the 
banana is consequently to that of wheat as 133 to 1 ; and to that of 
potatoes as 44 to 1." 

" In an eminently fertile country, a legal French acre cultivated with 
banana of the larger kind {Plalano Jirton) would feed more than fifty 
persons for a year ; while in Europe the same acre, on the principle of an 
eight fold increase, would yield but about twelve hundred pounds of 
wheat, a quantity not equal to the support for a year of two persons." — 
Humboldt Essai Polilique sur le Ronaumt de la .tVouvelle Espagne. Tom. 
III. 28, 35. 

Note N. Page 43. 

It need not be said, that the remarks, which are made in the text, rela- 
tive to the colonial establishments of different nations on the Americaa 
soil, can be intended to convey no disrespectful insinuation toward the 
free states now rising upon those colonial foundations. — The very magni- 
tude of the abuses of the ancient system is among the causes of the con- 
vulsive eflbrts, which have been made, in our days, against those abases; 
and the Patriots, who, under infinite discouragements, have effected thus 
far the political regeneration of those vast regions, are entitled to the 
greater praise for the difficulties incident to their enterprise. But that they 
are under no obligation to principles and examples derived from the 
mother country ; that the institutions established in the Spanish and Por- 
tuguese colonies, instead of serving as a school of freedom — like the 
colonial institutions in the North American colonies — were of a nature 
to retard the growth of independence, cannot be doubted. — Even in es- 
tablishing a form of free government, the leaders of the revolution in 
Colombia, have been obliged to express their regret that the state of the 
country and of its population did not allow them to prefer the Federative 
System of the United States to the less perfect Central System, which 
they have adopted. — See the opinions of Bolivar and M. de Salazar as 
quoted in the North American Review for Jan. 1825. p. 79. 

Note 0. Page 44. 

Few questions in Geography have been the subject of more important 
controversies than the limits of Brazil. It is not a little astonishing to 
see states like Spaiu and Portugal, which had respectively by the dis- 
covery of America and the passage of the Cape of Good Hope, made the 
acquisition of new territory larger than Europe, contesting with bit- 
terness a few square leagues of morass on the banks of the Amazon and 



71 

its tributaries. — The facts, on which the controversies aHuded to turned, 
are principally these. Pope Nicholas V, in 1454, granted to Alfonso 
King of Portugal, in full sovereignty, all the countries, which he should 
discover from Cape Non in Africa to India."* About the time of this 
grant the navigators of Portugal discovered the Cape de Verde Islands, 
and the Azores. In 1486, the Portuguese navigator Diaz discovered the 
Cape of Good Hope. In 1492 Columbus discovered America ; and 
controversies immediately arose between the Courts of Spain and Por- 
tugal, relative to the interference of their several discoveries. To settle 
this controversy the Spanish Court procured of Pope Alexander VI, 
(himself a Spaniard,) the famous bull bearing date May 1493, in which 
he gives to the king of Spain, in full sovereignty, " All the islands and 
continents which are or may be found, (Onines insulas et terras firmas 
inventas et inveniendas, detectas et detegendas,) to the south and west of 
a meridian line drawn one hundred leagues south of the southernmost of 
the Azores or Cape de Verde Islands. — This is the famous " line of de- 
marcation;" for though, (contrary to the popular representation) nothing 
is said, in this bull, of the right of the Portuguese to all discoveries east 
of the line, yet the former Papal grant to Portugal, already mentioned, 
had given to that kingdom the sovereignty over its discoveries in the 
east. The Portuguese having shortly after acquired Brazil, by the dis- 
coveries of Pinzon, who had been of the company of Columbus on his 
first voyage, it was perceived that it lay to the westward of the line of 
demarcation, and of course was subject to the Spanish claim. By the 
treaty of Tordesillas, in 1494, these conflicting rights were compromised, 
and the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal agreed to run the line three 
hundred and seventy leagues west of that prescribed by the Pope's bull. 
This memorable line, by which the territory of three fourth parts of the 
globe was divided, was to be run by skilful geographers, within ten 
months. Herrera (Decad. 111. lib. VI.) describes, in a manner ap- 
proaching the ludicrous, the array of maps, charts, globes, and instru- 
ments, which the geographers brought to this discussion ; and Humboldt 
justly remarks in reference to these and other kindred contests, (Relation 
Historique, Tom. II. p 441,) that the interests of science alone have been 
served by them. While the question was keenly agitated between the 
Portuguese and Spanish geographers, the former striving to run the line 
as far west and the latter as far east as possible, the discovery and 
occupation of the Moluccas by the Portuguese, completely inverted the 
policy of both parties. These valuable islands were perceived to be 
nearly opposite the Cape de Verdes, on the other side of the globe ; and 
the farther to the west of the Cape de Verdes the line of demarcation was 
run, so much more of the Moluccas and other neighboring islands 
would fall within the Spanish hemisphere. The Portuguese geographers 
now contended that the line of demarcation should be counted 370 
leagues from a line running through the isle of Salis, the easternmost of 
the Cape de Verdes, while the Spaniards counted the 370 leagues from 
a line running through St Antonio, which was ninety leagues more to 
the west, and was the most western of the group ; — each party being 
anxious to lose in Brazil, that it might gain in the Spice islands. — The 
controversy was protracted for many years, till in 1-580, it was, for a time, 
settled by the union of the two crowns of Spain and Portugal. (De 
JLaet, Novus Orbis, p. 541.) 

* See the original document in the great Corps Diplomatique. Tom. 
III. p. 200. 



72 

After their separation in 1640, the contest was revived. But the Spice 
islands having been wrested from the Portuguese by the Dutch, the con- 
troversy between the Portuguese and the Spaniards was now reduced to 
the limits of Brazil. The parties accordingly again changed sides ; the 
Portuguese geographers, at the conferences held at Puente de Caya in 
1682, maintained that tlic 370 leagues must be counted from the most 
western point of St Antonio, while the Spaniards insisted on the centre 
of the isle St Nicholas. Two or three commissions, at great expense, 
were sent out, in the course of the last century, to settle tlie possession 
of tlie uninhabited swamps on the banks of the Tuamini ; — the region 
which was constituted debateable ground by the uncertainty of the point, 
through which the meridian line should be run. — (Humboldt Relation 
Historiquc, Tom. II. p. 442.) 

In the first volume of M. Martens' supplement to the Recueil des Traiies, 
p. 372, the treaty of Tordesillas is contained, and in no previous col- 
lection of treaties. The limit of the Oyapok, Oyapoco, or lapoc, was 
finally settled by the 107th Article of the Act of the Congress of Vienna ; 
and by a sepai-ate convention therein provided for, between Portugal and 
France. 

Note P. Page 45. 

A more than ordinary identity of interest and character was effected 
between Portugal and Brazil ; and this vast region was even called by the 
name of Portugal. " On the banks of the Rio Negro,'' says Humboldt, 
in the chapter cited in the last note, " the neighboring country beyond 
the Amazon is called, in the language of the Spanish Missions, neither 
Brazil nor the Capitania general of Grand Pari, but Portugal. The cop- 
per colored Indians and the Mulattos, which I have seen ascending from 
Barcelos to the Spanisli fort San Carlos, are Portuguese. This denomina- 
tion prevails among the people even to the coasts of Cumana. A favor- 
ite anecdote relates, how the imagination of one of the commandants in 
the expedition oi Solano to settle the limits, in 1754, was struck, by hear- 
ing the inhabitants of these regions called Portuguese. The old soldier, 
as ignorant as brave, was provoked at having been sent to the banks of 
the Orenoque by sea : " If" said he, " as I hear, this vast province of Spa- 
nish Guyana reaches all the way to Portugal, (a los Portugeses,) why did 
the king make us sail from Cadiz. I should have preferred travelling a 
little farther by land." — " These expressions of nOive ignorance," adds 
Humboldt, " remind one of a strange opinion of Lorenzana the distin- 
guished archbishop of Mexico. This prelate, a person of great histori- 
cal research, observes in his edition of the letters of Cortes, published so 
late as 1770, that the possessions of the king of Spain in New California 
and New Mexico, border by land on Siberia .'" 

These anecdotes alone may serve as an index to the colonial systems 
of Spain and Portugal, whose archbishops and commissioners for set- 
tling limits supposed, in the middle of the last century, that Brazil was 
bounded by Portugal and New Mexico by Siberia. 

Note Q. Page 52. 

The sentiment in the text is very strongly illustrated by the statements 
contained in Pringle's account of the present state of " the English set- 
tlers at the Cape of Good Hope." From that work, it appears that 
ninety thousand persons besieged Earl Bathurst's office, with applications 
to embark in the government expedition, to found the colony in question. 
The calamitous consequences are detailed in the work alluded to. 



73 

Note R. Page 58. 

The constitution of the Mexican confederacy was adopted by the gen 
eral constituent Congress Oct. 4. 1824, and may be found translated in 
the National Journal for Dec. 10 and 11th. 

The Mexican confederacy consists of the following states and territo- 
ries ; the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila y Tejas, Durango, Gua- 
najuato, Mexico, Michoacan, Nuevo Leon, Oajaca, Puebla de los Ange- 
les, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Sonara y Sinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas (.'') 
Vera Cruz, lalisco, Yucatan, and Zacatecas ; the territories of upper and 
lower California, Colinia, and Santa Fe of "^ ew Mexico. The character 
of Tlaxcala is to be fixed by a constitutional law. 

It will be observed that the division into states and territories does not 
precisely correspond with the old division into intendencies. 

Note S. Page 59. 

" The following are a few of the subjects of the political essays of the 
Censor (a periodical paper published at Buenos Ayres) in 1817: an ex- 
planation of the Constitution of the United States, and highly praised — 
The Lancastrian System of Education — on the causes of the prosperity 
of the United States — Milton's essay on the liberty of the press — A re- 
view of the work of the late President Adams, on the American Consti- 
tution, and a recommendation of checks and balances, continued through 
several numbers and abounding with much useful information for the 
people — brief notice of the life of James Monroe, president of the Uni- 
ted States — examination of the federative system — on the trial by Jury — 
on popular elections — on the effect of enlightened productions on the 
condition of mankind — an analysis of the several state constitutions of 
the Union, Sic. 

" There are in circulation, Spanish translations of many of our best 
revolutionary writings. The most common are two miscellaneous vol- 
umes, one, containing Paine's common sense and rights of man, and de- 
claration of Independence, several of our constitutions, and General 
Washington's farewell address. The other is an abridged history of the 
United States down to the year 1810, with a good explanation of the 
nature of our political institutions, accompanied with a translation of Mr 
Jefferson's inaugural speech, and other state papers. I believe these 
have been read by nearly all who can read, and have produced a most 
extravagant admiration of the United States, at the same time, accom- 
panied with something like despair." — Breckenridge's South America, 
Vol. II. pp. 213, 214. 



